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I want to marry his daughter." Glassdale turned and stared at his companion. "His daughter!" he exclaimed. "Brake's daughter! God bless my soul! I never knew he had a daughter!" It was Bryce's turn to stare now. He looked at Glassdale incredulously. "Do you mean to tell me that you knew Brake all those years and that he never mentioned his children?" he exclaimed.
I felt, I knew not why, uneasy and impatient, and turned my steps toward town. "But I must stop at Brake's," I thought. This seemed imperative; so much so that I went out of my course a little, to reach his house, a pretty, suburban place. I remember passing under trees; and the depth of their shadow; it seemed like a bay of blackness into which the night flowed.
"Not alive!" replied Harker. "I saw him dead and I held my tongue, and have held it. But something happened that day. After I heard of the accident, I went into the Crown and Cushion tavern the fact was, I went to get a taste of whisky, for the news had upset me. And in that long bar of theirs, I saw a man whom I knew a man whom I knew, for a fact, to have been a fellow convict of Brake's.
The inspector slipped in like a ghost, and I followed him. Neither of us said anything further to the watchman; we went directly to Brake's place. He was not there. "I will wait a few minutes," I said. "I think he will be here. I must see Brake."
At the time of his arrest he had a wife and two very young children. Either just before, or at, or immediately after his arrest they completely disappeared and Brake himself utterly refused to say one single word about them. Harker asked if he could do anything Brake's answer was that no one was to concern himself. He preserved an obstinate silence on that point. The clergyman in whose family Mrs.
He got to know got into close touch with a Barthorpe man who, about the time of Brake's marriage, left Barthorpe end settled in London. Brake and this man began to have some secret dealings together. There was another man in with them, too a man who was a sort of partner of the Barthorpe man's.
This, after some search, I found in a corner, over the desk of Brake's assistant, and this I touched. My effort brought no reply. I pressed the button again with more force and more desperation; I might say, with more personality. "Obey me!" I cried, setting my teeth, and addressing the electric influence as a man addresses a menial. Instantly a thrill passed from the wire to the hand.
He let 'em have some thousands; they disappeared, and the bank inspector happened to call at Brake's bank and ask for his balances. And there he was. And that's why he'd Falkiner Wraye on his mind as his one big idea. T'other man was a lesser consideration, Wraye was the chief offender."
I bethought me of the private telegraph which stood by Brake's desk, mute and mysterious, like a thing that waited an order to speak. I could not help wondering, with something like superstition, what would be the next words which would pass the lips of the silent metal.
And all that fits in with the second mystery of Collishaw who probably knew, if not everything, then something, of the exact circumstances of Brake's death, and let his knowledge get to the ears of Brake's assailant! who cleverly got rid of him. That's my notion," concluded the detective. "And I shall be surprised if it isn't a correct one!"
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